


Having a Good Time, It Looks Like

by Catchclaw



Series: Mental Mimosa [77]
Category: James Bond (Craig movies)
Genre: Fake/Pretend Relationship, M/M, Q in the Field
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-07-09
Updated: 2018-07-09
Packaged: 2019-06-07 18:21:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,727
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15225183
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Catchclaw/pseuds/Catchclaw
Summary: The first rule of a fake, albeit mission critical relationship, Q quickly learns, is that there are boundaries.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is a continuation of a previous Mental Mimosa ficlet, "Speaking Through Quicksand."
> 
> For the purists among you, chapter 1 is the original ficlet; chapter 2 features today's writing.

 

 

Q goes to bed with Bond because he has to. Why he stays is...more complicated.

First of all, there can’t be any question that sending him hook, line, and gadgets to Lima, Peru with virtually no warning borders on cruel. He hates flying; HQ knows that, so with less than six hours of lead time, he has barely enough time to pack a bag and kiss the cats, never mind work himself up properly for the prospect of 13 hours in a metal tube hurtling over the relative safety of the earth.

“Take a deep breath,” Moneypenny tells him on his way out the door, pressing a packet into his palm. “And take two of these once you’re airborne. You won’t know anything until you hit the ground.”

“That’s precisely what I’m afraid of.”

She does her very best not to laugh. Doesn’t quite succeed, but still. “Most people would be more worried about the shit storm that they’re about to step into, rather than how they’ll be getting to said shit storm.”

“Yes, well.” He shifts the bag on his shoulder. “Most people aren’t me.”

Moneypenny does laugh then, a warm sound that echoes the squeeze of her hand on his elbow. “Oh,” she says, “I know. And that’s exactly why they’re sending you, pip.”

It isn’t until he’s made Lima, stumbled off the plane and through Customs and into the ridiculously bright main terminal, that he starts to understand what she meant.

Because Bond is there, waiting for him in white shorts and a deep blue cotton shirt that make his eyes look like a crime. He’s relaxed and tanned and painfully gorgeous and something in Q’s rumpled, sweaty heart stumbles, a drunken man on a staircase. And that’s before Bond smiles and says:

“Darling! There you are. I was starting to worry.”

“Why?” Q says. “You knew what flight I was--”

Bond grabs him--a not altogether unpleasant thing--and pulls him close, whispers: “You’re supposed to be glad to see me. Three months parted, and all that.”

Q isn’t sure what to do with his hands, much less with his good sense, because lord, Bond smells good: like sunshine mixed with rum punch. “Yes. I did read the mission brief, you know.”

Bond nuzzles his cheek, the softness of the stroke belying his tone. “Then act like it. Put your arms around my neck--yes, like that. Good. And step a little closer to me. That’s right.” A smile, a sharp little thing. “Now. I’m going to kiss you. Do try to act as though you enjoy it, all right?”

Q’s face is a flame. “I’ll try.”

“Ah,” Bond says, louder now, in a voice undeniably fond, “that’s my boy.”

There’s a moment before Bond kisses him and a moment after, and in between, he realizes how long it’s been since he’s been kissed anybody, much less by somebody who knew what they're doing and Bond  _knows._  Christ, does he. The man's mouth is all at once lush and demanding, soft and insistent, and he’s touching Q, too; cupping Q’s face in one hand and stilling his hips with the other and oh god, the beautiful things he does with his tongue,  _fuck_. It’s not Q’s fault that he moans, that his hands slip to Bond’s broad shoulders and dig in, do their best to hang on. 

Yes, this is Bond’s job and yes, they’re in the middle of an airport surrounded by strangers, a few of whom probably want to kill them, others moving through their everyday lives, but still it strikes Q that there’s no way for him to tell them what’s changed, that his life has just tipped over sideways, that there are answers to questions he didn’t know he should be asking in the soft, greedy suck of Bond’s mouth.

“Yes,” Bond says, a word dragged through hot sand. “I do need to get you home, don’t I?” He kisses the curve of Q’s neck. “Nobody should see you like this except me.”

It’s like trying to speak through quicksand. “Like--?”

Then Bond is swinging the bag from Q’s shoulder and turning to face the real world, reaching out for Q’s hand. “Come on, darling. The car's waiting. You’re going to love Peru."

 


	2. Chapter 2

The first rule of a fake, albeit mission critical relationship, Q quickly learns, is that there are boundaries.

Outside of Bond’s neat, three-room flat near the city’s center, everything couple-y is fair game: from snogging to pet names to small gestures of affection; for example, Bond spends what Q regards as an inordinate amount of time with his hand in Q’s hair. What’s fair game is negotiable, though, at least in the early going. There’s a speck of hesitation when Bond tries something new--a hand on Q’s thigh during dinner, for instance; or a soft kiss on his throat when they’re dancing, Q’s arms wound around Bond’s neck, Bond’s big hands on Q’s hips and his back--a moment that Q tells himself could be explained away if need be with _we’ve been apart for three months and things are a bit awkward_ or _we’ve been transoceanically cross with each other for a while but we’re trying to get over it_. But nobody looks at them twice, so far as he can tell, and that’s precisely the point, isn’t it? To blend in, to be like so much scenery; an innocuous background in front of which the smugglers Bond’s been casing for weeks will enact their little drama unawares.

Inside Bond’s apartment, though, it’s all business. They sleep in the same bed and pad around not fully dressed, but Bond doesn’t reach for him in the kitchen or settle a hand between Q’s shoulder blades while Q’s brushing his teeth. He’s friendly, their Bond, sometimes even amusing--he does an impression of Tanner that makes Q snort up his tea--but he’s the consummate professional, even when Q wakes up pressed to Bond’s back with his cock dreamily hard. He rolls out of bed the moment he realizes, drowns himself in a cold shower and the metallic taste of humiliation, but when he finally emerges, Bond doesn’t say a word about it. Not even a raised eyebrow or a josh. Instead, he blithely shoves over a plate of warm toast and pours Q a big mug of tea.

It isn’t until later, when they’re skulking around a warehouse, Bond with a gun and Q with an electronic sniffer, that Q remembers his dream. He’d been in Bond’s lap, spread across his thighs, actually, the both of them crammed in the threadbare armchair that normally sat in the living room of the flat. Except in his dream, the chair was out on the balcony, the whole of Lima stretched out below them, the vista trailing down to the sea. Bond had been inside him, a great, heavy weight, the old lion’s face tipped up to his, mouthing kisses under his jaw and smiling. So much smiling.

“We’re not really inside, are we?” Q had said in his dream. “We’re on the outside of it all, looking in.”

And Bond, the imaginary one, had chuckled and said: “Look at me, darling. Don’t worry about anyone else. Just look at me.”

The memory of the thing is so suddenly clear, so sharp, that he stumbles a little, falls a good pace or two behind. Bond turns, one eyebrow raised-- _all ok here_?--and he nods, makes a shooing motion, gets Bond turned round and moving again.

They draw a blank at the warehouse, much to Bond’s great frustration--"They've moved it," he spits at Q. " _Damn_."--but it's not until they duck out of a back alley and into an unexpectedly large evening crowd that his temper gets the best of him.

“Bloody hell,” Q hears Bond hiss behind him. “This is supposed to be--what are all these fools doing here?”

Before Q can answer-- _Having a good time, it looks like_ \--Bond’s grabbed him by the arms and spun him into the side of a building, pressed him up against a mile of sun-warmed bricks and he gets one glimpse at Bond’s red, angry face before there’s a tongue in his mouth and hot, possessive hands on his chest. It’s not a kind kiss; there’s nothing sweet about it. Gone is the gentleman that Q’s been working with, making out with, all in the name of Queen and Country, and in his place is a predator, a creature determined to take what he wants, Q’s feelings about the matter be damned.

Normally, on the green grass of English shores, Q would be repulsed by such behavior. In theory, that is. No one’s ever technically kissed him like this before, never been so aggressively handsy, never growled quite so loud in private, much less out in the street in front of people he doesn’t know, will never meet. Perhaps that’s why, the small, logical section of his brain muses, his reaction is the opposite of what he might have expected--it’s the element of surprise that fuels his arousal, that has him grabbing back at Bond, running his nails down the curve of Bond’s hips and giving up a low whine. Bond bites his lip and Q bites him back harder and Bond arches his back, rubs himself good and proper against Q’s straining thigh, and for the first time in all of this--it’s like a thunderbolt--Q realizes that Bond, too, is turned on, that he’s _enjoying_ this, kissing Q, manhandling him, mission critical or no, and that’s--that’s--

“Stop,” Q spits, shoving at Bond’s shoulders. “Goddamn you, James, _stop_.”

Bond lets him go, steps away, panting, but his eyes are locked on Q’s face. There’s a storm on his own, a typhoon that Q has no idea how to read. Perhaps because there’s a maelstrom of its own raging inside of Q’s head, his heart.

“We should go home,” Bond says after a minute. “We shouldn’t be just standing out here on the street.” He looks around, chucks his chin up the street. “Come on. Car’s that way.”

He turns away and Q looks up at the stars, the feeble breaks of light, harbingers of the coming dark.

“What the hell,” Q says to them. “What in the actual fucking hell was that?”


End file.
